Hey, I don't really care about it one way or the other ... but I have PBD right now and it's leaving me in a mean state of mind ...

Ekkehard Augustin wrote:

The initial post of this thread here now consideres space elevators, elevator prizes and prizes for technologies that could be used for elevators as prizes competing to the XPRIZE.

No it doesn't. The initial post was just blathering on about replacing a whiteknight-type craft for the launch of a SS1-type craft ... and didn't mention it in connection with ANY prize whatsoever.

If you're going to cut-and-paste threads about the place, which is bloody annoying by the way (although it doesn't happen that often, mercifully), please don't read into them your own personal subcontext filter.

you are right that far... - but the title used at the initial post is "SPACE ELEVATOR!!! XPRIZE TAKE NOTE! update!!!!!". This title is stimulating and inviting to consider competition or concurrence between these two. Space elevators slightly reduce the meaning of personal spacflight and thus the attractivness of the XPRIZE and the XPRIZE CUP and they can reduce the impact of the success of Wight Knight/SpaceShipOne on the access of the general public to space.

Rob Goldsmith placed the initial post in this section here - XPRIZE in General - and so all of us should post contents that consider connections and impacts of space elevators and space elevator-oriented and -related prizes on the XPRIZE competitions and on those competing in the XPRIZE competitions.

I did the lot of moves because I was looking for a special technological thread and detected it outside the Technology section. When I detected it I recognized that several more technological threads were posted there and I detected some in other sections too.

This meant that it would simplify the search for such threads if I moved them to the section they fit in - and so I did it. There were non-technological threads too for which this was valid.

Because of the XPRIZE CUP it can be expected that there will be an increase of threads in the sections "Who's going to lead the race to space?" as well as in the section "Teams".

The LiftPort Group, the space elevator companies, announced September 9 that it has received a waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to use airspace to conduct preliminary tests of its high altitude robotic “lifters.”

The lifters are early prototypes of the technology that the company is developing for use in its commercial space elevator to ferry cargo back and forth into space.

The tests, which are planned for early fall, will simulate a working space elevator by launching a model elevator “ribbon” attached to moored balloon initially up to a mile high. The robotic lifters will then be tested in their ability to climb up and down the free-hanging ribbon, marking the first-ever test of this technology in the development of the space elevator concept.

According to Michael Laine, president of the LiftPort Group in Bremerton, Washington, the FAA go-ahead is a “critical step” in the ultimate developing of the group’s LiftPort Space Elevator concept.